Huddled with her six children under the trees at City Park, Aracely Gonzales said she felt a sense of peace.

It hadn't been ideal, marching for an hour under a harsh downpour in downtown Coeur d'Alene, pausing periodically to pray to the rosary.

But maybe that's how it should be, the Rathdrum mother reasoned.

"I feel it's a good experience for my girls," she said. "It's not sunny, but we still have this little penance, a sacrifice to do this. We do it with grateful hearts."

She was among an estimated 500 people that filled up several blocks along Sherman Avenue on Saturday praying to the rosary of the virgin Mary, an event she recalls occurring here for more than 15 years.

Her husband Gene observed that more folks have gathered every year for the rosary march, which occurs nationwide. Some participants are Catholics like himself, some are unaffiliated with the church, simply worried for the spiritual bruising of society.

"There are so many things to pray for," Gene observed, adding that the group had marked each rosary prayer with a hymn in between. "For all the corruption of the church, the corruption of government, the corruption of the world. This is what we are sending our prayers to heaven for."

Michele Pilskalns had made the drive from Newport, Wash., with seven of her children.

They wanted to celebrate her 4-year-old's birthday with something spiritually uplifting, she said.

"This is our first time doing this," Pilskalns said as a crying toddler wrapped around her legs. "We just felt we needed to come out here, with everything getting worse."

Everything being war, paralyzing government partisanship, disease, poverty.

With all that building up, she pointed out, what option is left but to look for help from above?

"I think everyone praying together will help," she said with a smile.

Never mind the weather, she said.

It only proved that everyone who showed up on Saturday morning, who marched side by side and struggled to warm themselves at City Park afterward, truly meant it.

"I believe everyone who came out here cared," she said. "We believe that prayer will change things."